The Associated Press State & Local Wire
The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press.
February 23, 2004, Monday, BC cycle
2:03 AM Eastern Time
SECTION: State and Regional
LENGTH: 591 words
BYLINE: By ALICIA CARMICHAEL, Daily News
DATELINE: BOWLING GREEN, Ky.

Erin Brady Worsham flies above the Earth, past a mountain, past clouds. Her green wings lift her higher while her husband holds the breathing tube that guides her through the sky, as if she were a living butterfly kite.

Their young son lies on a blanket, watching.

The scene is from Worsham's self portrait, "Breathtaking Metamorphosis," which depicts the quadriplegic artist's life on a ventilator.

It's just one scene of many at the Kentucky Library and Museum at Western Kentucky University, where Worsham's work went on exhibit this month.

"To see the artwork, you're amazed," said Earlene Chelf, coordinator of marketing and special events at Western. "Then, when you find out she's faced a tremendous physical challenge to create the artwork, it's (even more) amazing."

Worsham is a WKU alumna who creates paintings in her Nashville, Tenn., home using a computer controlled by her eyebrow movements.

As a WKU student of theater and German in the late 1970s and 1980, she ran around campus and acted in productions.

"My time at Western was an intense period in my life," Worsham wrote in an e-mail interview. "Like most students, it was the first time I was entirely on my own. That kind of freedom is intoxicating. You never forget your first taste of it."

Worsham was diagnosed in 1994 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - better known as Lou Gehrig's disease - and has since faced the loss of use of her arms and legs, the ability to breathe on her own and the ability to speak coherently. She best communicates via e-mail, but even that effort takes some doing.

Yet her artwork has thrived.

The "Artist Always: Erin Brady Worsham" exhibit, which will be at WKU through March 28, was set up through a partnership between Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which has commissioned work from Worsham, and the Society for the Arts in Healthcare.

Worsham studied art years ago at Watkins College of Art and Design in Nashville, after deciding to forgo the theater.

"My dreams of having a career in the theater were just that," she wrote. "I discovered after four or five years on the road as a professional actor that I was not cut out for the life of a vagabond!"

But Worsham uses much of what she learned in her theatrical training at Western to create her colorful images.

"Instead of acting on a stage, I now create my own 2-dimensional sets and inhabit them with characters I've auditioned in my mind," she wrote. "Art and theater are very similar disciplines."

For the past two years, Worsham has designed the Christmas cards sent out by the WKU Alumni Association.

"Obviously, I'm impressed with her perseverance and dedication and self-confidence and drive to allow her talents to come out, given all her difficulties and challenges," Western Kentucky University President Gary Ransdell said.

"I'm pleased we're going to display her work," he said. "I hope it helps her. She's a source of pride to Western."

Worsham is excited about the show - her first at her alma mater.

"I am looking forward to returning to Western as an older and wiser individual," she wrote. "I don't while away the hours anymore with daydreams of what I'd like to do with my life someday. ALS has taught me that the time for all things is NOW! These days, my dreams are just a precursor to the actions I must take to make them come true."

Worsham wrote that she hopes her "designs will reach out and yank the viewer into the picture."

Then, "Once there," she wrote, "I hope they'll look around for a while!"

Click here to see Erin Brady Worsham's art